Pre-immersion
“Hey, you, Dwarf.”
My Mother squealed at the intrusion. We had a very small cabin, with even smaller compartments for each of us to sleep in. With my siblings all underfoot my Mother barely had time to move, which made the Fisherboy barging in even more dramatic.
The boy was taller than my Mother, and, looking over her head, saw me. “Hey, come up on deck, there are dolphins to see.”
He grabbed my hand, pulling me away, “Have you seen dolphins before?”
“Well, yes, yesterday, and several days ago…” I started.
“Well, these are really close, and there are a lot of them, come on.” He looked behind me at my Sisters, my oldest Sister holding my Brother on her hip, “You all should come too. It is something to see.”
“Come on,” he said, pulling me harder, “the gang is waiting for us.”
I struggled up the stairs, his pulling making it hard for me, and eventually arrived on deck. “It took you long enough,” Seamus said, “I was afraid they would go away. Look!” We, my Sisters following me, went over to the rails and looked.
It was a whole pack of Dolphins… if it is proper to call Dolphins a ‘pack’. It was a beautiful sight indeed, watching them leaping up out of the water.
I noticed one of the Fishergirls holding on to a rope with one hand, and yelling at the Dolphins. “What is she doing?” I asked.
“Talking to them. They aren’t very good at our talk, so we try to talk to them whenever they come by.”
They were beautiful creatures, and watching them swim made me all the more jealous. We stood for a while, a long while, until finally the Dolphins were gone.
As were my buddies. Gertrude saw my look, “They got called to work,” she said. “I saw one of them looking at you, but you were so busy drooling over the Dolphins.”
“I wasn’t drooling,” I said. “I just want to swim.”
“Well, you get to in a few minutes,” she said. “I don’t envy you. It looks cold.”
I was very nervous on my way to lunch, but I hadn’t expected what actually happened. As soon as I appeared from the hatchway a Fisherboy grabbed me. “Hey, Seamus says you have to sit with us.”
My parents had never told me anything about where I had to sit, and Seamus was the captain’s son, so I went with the boy. “Here he is, Seamus,” the boy said, and I saw that I was at the captain’s own table.
“Father,” Seamus said, “This is my friend Heinrich that I told you about.”
“Ah, the Dwarf boy that wants to go swimming,” the Captain said, peering down at me as if he had a problem seeing me as short as I was. He had a huge grin on his face though, as he reached out to shake my hand. “I love to see a boy rise to a challenge,” he said, and everyone laughed.
“Oh, ignore him,” Seamus said, pulling me to a seat, “He likes his jokes.”
The room stilled, and the Captain prayed. Then Seamus reached forward for the bowl of fish stew in front of him, scooping some into my bowl, and then into his. “Guests first,” he said, passing the bowl to his Sister, who had given him a dirty look. “Now, tell me who you are. Where do you come from and all? We know that Dwarves like to tell stories.”
So I began:
“Well, my friend, I was fifteen years old when the news first came that the King had decided to move toward settling the mainland, that event which we had always spoken of, but few of us ever thought would happen.
“We lived, at the time, in a small dwarf city in the mountains south of Zu Hause, far away from where they were taking colonists, so none of us would be going, but it was still exciting. And then…” I paused before speaking the next part, which was all about, you know, having babies and stuff, but I did have a Fisherman audience, and it was vital to the story.
“And then everyone around me started whispering, and then talking, so that even a sixteen-year-old could notice. They were whispering about two new things.
“First of all, they were whispering that now the King of the Island was asking that families go, not just couples, but families with several children, to populate the new land.
“And the second thing was that everyone was pregnant! At first one Mother after another, and even newlyweds, had just thought that it was one of those rare events. We Dwarves usually have quite a while between our children, as you know. I don’t know why, it is just how He Who Is has made us. It was very unusual, then, for one of our Mothers to get pregnant.
“But then one excited Mother told another Mother… and found out that she was pregnant as well. Newlywed brides emerged blushing from their nuptial cave, and rushed off to tell their Mothers the shocking news, only to find out that their Mothers had news for them.
“And then the news trickled in that it wasn’t just the Dwarves. Every woman in all the races was pregnant. Even the Trolls, who almost never had any children after their initial litter of six, were suddenly turning up pregnant.
“All the whispering had been about the writing on the wall, discussing the now evident fact that many, many more Dwarves were going to be emigrating. The average Dwarf couple, even after their long life, only had six children. The way things were going that number was going to become eight, ten, or even more in a very short time.
“The King and his advisors had contacted you Fishermen and together they had instituted a crash-building program for new ships. You Fishermen, with a population explosion of your own, seemed thrilled to have the money to do what you would have done anyway. And our Dwarf King had realized that the Dwarves would, in the end, lose almost nothing for the ships. We could make them pay for themselves by charging passage to the various other races who also needed transport.
“The only race left out of the transaction was the Horsemen. They were traditionally poor, so the King of the Island was having to pay for their transport (and difficult transport it was). You Fishermen ended up making ships specifically to transport them.
“We had to wait five years for the first of the new ships to be ready. Many of our Dwarves and other races were immigrating in the Fishermen’s old ships. We never received shipments of fish anymore, for you Fishermen were always too busy transporting everyone to the new land.
“I was excited to hear, from my Father, that he had put our names in as emigrants, and even more excited to hear that I would be getting to travel with those of other races. In our small city we almost never saw other races; an occasional Elf, Marshman, or even Fisherman; but never other races, and never any boys.”
“Well, Father, that is a story for you, eh? And to think, you were there at the beginning.”
At my confused look he said, “Didn’t you know? My Father is Sean, the friend of the Prince himself, who was on the first ship to go to the mainland. He even has a friend who is a Dolphin. I was born on one of the trips back and forth, after my Father took my Mother. He knows them all, Tristan, Wynforr… has even met the King himself, haven’t you Father?”
“You shame me with your boasting, my Son,” the Father said, not sounding all that put out. “And Seth, the Prince, is a member of your family, and you shame him, too.”
I gulped. I hadn’t known. I didn’t even dare to look up, but sat and spent the rest of the meal listening to Seamus and his friends telling sea stories, and stories of his trips to the mainland.
“It is an amazing place. I love going there. I have even gotten to go to the first fort once, and got to transform into Farmer.”
“Don’t like it much though. But Father said that it’s better for long trips into the interior. It’s hard to ride horseback as a Fisherboy, with our tails and all.”
I stared behind him at his tail. It must be hard indeed to ride a horse with that. Seamus had his, indeed they all had theirs, hanging over the back of the bench they were sitting on, and then looped under the table. He saw what I was looking at and, under the table, grabbed me with the tip of his tail, causing me to start. He grinned. “Ready to go swimming?”
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books include:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Links
Island People is a young adult fantasy book centring on a young prince. The book starts with his kidnapping and follows his adventures as he not only escapes from his kidnapper but gains critical allies and friends.
The entire book is scheduled on Substack, and there are several sequels. This is a book I wrote years ago, so it is in a bit of a rough form. Critiques and comments are more than welcome, they are requested.